


this is my winter song to you

by romanitas



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas Eve, F/M, Holidays, Jewish!Jyn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:22:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28334583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanitas/pseuds/romanitas
Summary: Cassian is used to both 1) Jyn not celebrating Christmas and 2) Jyn getting into fights, but they don't usually coincide.
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Comments: 10
Kudos: 54





	this is my winter song to you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [labaleinette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/labaleinette/gifts).



> idk fam i just wanted to write a fic where jyn was jewish for my friend who is also jewish and here we are! this fic has no real plot and is cassian pov bc i am not jewish, but i do feel the pain of being raised catholic.

“I think my favorite part of Christmas is Krampus.”

“I didn’t think you had a favorite part of Christmas.”

“The gingerbread’s not bad either. But the Germans really went off with Krampus.” 

Cassian knows that. It’s the only reason he even buys any, because he much prefers peppermint and hasn’t made a gingerbread house since he was five. “I am pretty sure Krampus is Austrian?” But now he’s not actually sure. “There’s probably overlap.” 

“Imagine being six and getting in trouble for telling the other kids Santa isn’t real. It would’ve made my life a lot easier if I just went around telling them Krampus wasn’t real.” 

“Just for that, he’s going to come get you.”

“You know he only goes after naughty children, and I am definitely not a child, come on Cassian.”

He notices she doesn’t even pretend she doesn’t fit the other part of the bill, but she is a very belligerent person. He sets the gingerbread hot cocoa in front of her, his own peppermint already in hand, and they toast their mugs before pouring over the Chinese food menu for tomorrow. Cassian does Christmas on the 24th, Jyn doesn’t do it at all, and over the years he’s joined her tradition of take out on the 25th. Usually they have a bigger crew, but their friends have sort of ended up all over this year. Even Baze and Chirrut have finally taken a vacation, spending a few weeks traversing through Thailand and Vietnam through New Years. Last year they set up a buffet at Bodhi’s, but this year he’s trying to be holiday supportive with his boyfriend.

“I know we’re getting this for dinner tomorrow, and I _know_ you’re making tamales as we speak, but I really want some crab rangoon tonight too.”

“I am not going to stop you, but I am not going to get it for you.” 

He really should not have said those words specifically, because in the end Cassian found himself picking up her crab rangoon on the way to pick her up from the police station. 

She slips out a few minutes early on the guise of grabbing them an extra bottle of vodka in case they get snowed in, but he finishes cooking the tamales and the pozole and Jyn hasn’t returned. He texts her a picture of the little kitchenette set up, the empty bowl for her rangoons beside the tamales. They don’t need much more than that; he’d already decided to go small this year. But a full half hour passes without a word, even after he’s called her twice, and he’s about to grab his coat to go on a man hunt when his phone rings from an unknown number. Normally, he ignores it, but he’s so paranoid about Jyn that he picks it up after two buzzes. 

“Jyn?” he asks, not quite able to hide the worry in his voice. 

“I’m sorry, please just listen before you panic,” she babbles out quickly, and it is all he can do but listen after that plea. 

It’s not the worst phone call, but it’s not the best, nor is it the first time Jyn has ended up in the slammer. He knows she was arrested a few times in her youth and has a juvenile record, but she’s been pretty lucky with her adult crimes. No, she isn’t technically arrested, yes, she still needs him to come get her, and please can he just pick up the rangoon from the scene of the crime. He actually gets in his car for this venture, because Wok On In is a five minute walk, but the station is a fifteen minute drive. He debates the merits of skipping the food but he knows she’ll complain if he shows up empty handed. 

He leaves the food in the car but he takes his wallet and phone, because neither of them have any trust in the police force. He doesn’t know how long they’re in there, because it feels like both ages and a speedrun before Jyn is finally released without any charges pressed and he breathes a sigh of relief about not needing to cover bail. He helps her tug on her jacket, and she squeezes his hand, both in reassurance and a small smidgeon of gratitude. 

She doesn’t go into any details, grumbling about the racist prick in the restaurant that she may or may not have punched. She maintains it was only once, but the report claimed it was several, and there was a lot of back and forth at the station. The restaurant owners backed her up, which helped in the end. 

“I didn’t even get to the stupid register yet!” she hisses, slamming the car door after she climbs inside. “And it’s not like there was any property damage. He was just being an ass because I gave him a black eye almost immediately, I think his wife called the cops. Both of them were dicks. And I think I lost my hat there. Good thing I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Cassian is quiet as he drives away, mostly because he is taking it in, grateful it isn’t something keeping her overnight. She slithers a hand in the box and steals one of the crab rangoons, and the rest of the ride home is a quiet one. By the time Cassian parks the car and unbuckles, it’s probably been about an hour since he left, close to two since Jyn started her own quest. She’s tucked in the passenger seat, leaning against the window. 

He wants to ask if she’s okay, but her uncharacteristic follow up silence makes him think she’s a little more shaken by the experience than she’s letting on, so naturally he is overthinking the best way to approach it. She collects her food and they climb out of the car, Jyn following two steps behind him as they make their way into their apartment they’ve shared for two years now. 

Before he can speak, Jyn finally bursts with her own question after she dumps the now cold rangoons on the table, frowning at the food display. “Are you mad at me?”

Cassian looks up, startled. “What?”

She shoves another cold rangoon in her mouth, cheeks puffed out in angry nervousness. “It’s Christmas Eve.”

“Yes?”

“And I got arrested.”

“Technically, no charges ended up being filed.”

“Yeah. But.” She fidgets, swallows her food, and looks again at the tamales like it’s an urn. “All your food is cold. And you wasted so much time at a stupid police station when I know this is your Christmas, not tomorrow. You were so quiet the whole time, I just thought…”

He frowns. He knows sometimes his silence is misconstrued for anger, simply because he’s always been like that, and his expression defaults to a frowning neutral. His is a quiet, colder sort of frustration rather than the outbursts Jyn is prone to. Somehow Jyn has gotten very good at reading him over the years, but he supposes it’s been a chaotic couple of hours. “No, I am just glad you are okay. The radio silence threw me off.”

“They confiscated my phone,” she spits out, pulling it out like she needs to make sure they gave it back, and then she’s pursing her lips at the screen. “In my defense, it wasn’t radio silence on purpose.”

He lost track of how many texts he sent, but all the notifications she’s only just seeing are far too embarrassing to count. “I know that now,” he says, a little awkwardly. “I was just… worried.” 

Jyn shoves her phone aside, looking at him with more resolve. “Come on, microwaves exist for a reason.” 

Together they reheat the food through tried and true means, settling into the living room on the sofa with their plates much closer to ten o’clock than the planned seven. It takes only a few bites before they’re bickering about what movie to put on, and Jyn only agrees to the Christmas episodes of Community because he sat with her through the Rugrats Hanukkah specials the other day, as though they don’t enjoy both individually to begin with. He’s mastered her favorite latkes, her mother’s recipe she could never quite replicate, and now that Cassian has, she all but shoves it on him every year and then some - but he doesn’t mind. Sometimes he just makes them in the middle of summer after his own cravings. Otherwise, she doesn’t care about them much.

When they’re done, Jyn collects the plates. “It’s literally the least I can do,” she says, eyes sparkling like she’ll physically fight him if he tries to take over clean up duty. Jyn’s version of clean up duty is shoving the dishes in the sink and filling the dishwasher in the morning, but they always get done, so he doesn’t care. She putzes around in the kitchen for a little bit, and he hears the kettle turn on, so he assumes she’s making some tea. When she comes back out, her hands are behind her back and she’s biting her lip in both defiance and nerves. 

Before he can ask, Jyn hops over to where she’s set the Menorah at the windowsill, all eight candles still lit up. Without a word, she settles something bright red right at the base of it, spending a few good seconds adjusting. Stepping back, she’s nestled in a small poinsettia next to her Menorah. 

“I stopped at the store. That’s why I left early. I just thought. You know. Something for you, something for me, like everything else we do. I was worried I might lose it when they searched my pockets.”

He stands up and comes over, feeling a very stupid smile slipping on his face. They’ve been doing that for a while, he thinks, and it seems so obvious now, but it definitely developed naturally, obliviously. Neither of them are particularly religious, but Jyn was still raised Jewish, and Cassian is a recovering Catholic. She doesn’t go to synagogue, but he fasts with her on Yom Kippur when she’s up for it. He taught her to make luminaria, and they spend the first week of December decorating the house with them. On Christmas Eve, they always exchange a book to read the next day carried over from her time in Iceland as a child, but Jyn always gives him another Christmas present too, mostly because he always gives her eight days of Hanukkah gifts. Day one is always funky socks, and she saves them to wear on Christmas Day when she goes out to get her Chinese food. This year they were surfing turtle socks. 

He smiles again, reaching up to cradle her cheeks between his hands before he ducks in to kiss the nerves off her face. She melts into it, any remaining anxiety vanquished by his touch. It’s soft, sweet, with just a hint of hunger, and he doesn’t care that she tastes a little bit like fried seafood. When he pulls away, her hands have found their way to rest against his neck, and she blinks a few times, expression still wanting. He plants one final kiss on her forehead. “I could never be mad at you for punching a racist, Jyn.”

“It was more like… what if I ruined your Christmas,” she admits, but only after tucking her head under his chin. She never apologizes for punching anybody. 

He wraps his arms around her. “Impossible. Only Krampus can do that.”

She laughs, a quiet sound buried against his chest as she returns the hug. “I took his name in vain. He got me arrested.”

“That explains it. Tried to take you away, but he was thwarted.”

The kettle goes off, and Jyn jumps, hauling Cassian down to kiss his cheek before she zips into the kitchen. Cassian moves back over to admire her little addition, flower and candles together like them, but it isn’t long before Jyn returns. She touches the small of his back, blowing on her tea. “One more episode till midnight, think we can make it?”

“I have no say in the matter, Jyn, I am Mexican.”

She drags him back to the couch, where he finds she’s made him another hot cocoa, though this one smells more like cinnamon. As soon as he sits down, she curls up in his space, sprawled over him like an octopus, and she pulls the fish themed fuzzy blanket over them both. She definitely dozes off, leaving her tea to get cold on the coffee table, but Cassian’s content to just stay awake, happy she didn’t have to spend the night in a jail cell. He definitely would have bailed her out though. Deep down they both know that. 

It’s a few minutes to midnight mid credits when she flutters awake. “Your present’s under the tree, but I don’t wanna move.” 

“I cannot say I am interested in that right now either,” he grins. She’s very warm.

Jyn groans dramatically and rolls off Cassian and the couch, taking the blanket with her. She practically slugs her way across the floor, absorbing the gift into her blanket. He doesn’t even care what it is at this point, it’s worth watching her laziness, which continues as she rolls herself back toward the couch. “Please join me down here. I’m tired.”

Cassian slips down to the floor, and she lifts the blanket enough to throw it over his head, tucking them both into her fuzzy little fort. She offers up a box, wrapped up with newspaper and tied with a red bow. “I don’t really care about Christmas, but I do care about you.”

He _definitely_ doesn’t care about his gift right now, just leans in to kiss her again. She allows it, briefly, before shoving him away. “Open your stupid gift so I can go to bed. Midnight Christmas is too long.”

“You regularly stay up past one in the morning.”

“It’s too long _today_.”

He grins but indulges her, tearing it open like he knows she prefers, and she yawns once or twice in fatigue, not boredom, as he opens up the box and pulls out a mug. It’s got a beaver on the side, captioned neatly with ‘I love you dam it.’ It’s so perfectly Jyn and perfect for his morning coffee and it’s just one more thing that’s always going to remind him of the both of them, together. 

“Feliz Navidad, Cassian,” she says, and he yet again goes in for the kiss. This time she indulges him, and he carefully puts his new mug aside to resume the affectionate festivities. “Sap,” she mutters out between kisses as he tangles his fingers through her hair.

“You love it.”

“Yeah. I do,” she beams, dragging him down on top of her.

It’s fortunate they get to sleep in tomorrow and eat nothing but leftovers and take out, because Cassian manages to keep Jyn awake for a little while longer, this time without any complaints. Tomorrow is for reading and Chinese food and probably a late night showing of the terrible Krampus movie; tonight is simply for midnight snacks.

**Author's Note:**

> i appear every december like mariah carey to drop a christmas/holiday fic then disappear once again into the night where i forget how to write words
> 
> shoutout to my mexican and jewish friends for all the traditions they've told me about over the years xoxo happy holidays everyone!


End file.
